Monday, July 16, 2007

Sick and TwistedIn a New Yorker commentary lauding Michael Moore's "Sicko" because it successfully keeps the issues of healthcare in the public mind, Atul Gawande states:

"The cheapest proposals [for universal single-payer coverage] circulating would still require more than a hundred billion dollars a year in public funds—around a thousand dollars per American household. Taxing millionaires or cutting 'waste, fraud, and abuse' won’t pay for that."

No, but for $84/month I would be very happy to pay for that coverage instead of the $850/month I currently pay for Blue Cross with a $1,500 deductible per person. Yes, ANY health plan will cost money. But you can't just say that without also stating the enormous savings that will result. The simplest and best approach is to simply extend Medicare coverage to all citizens. Let's do that first, give some REAL competition to the private insurance industry for once, and then start to tinker with it. This will work. It will have its difficulties at first. But it will be cheaper than the Iraq War that's for damn sure and we somehow find a way to pay for that.